in reply to Re: Re: Using * character to open all Files in the directory
in thread Using * character to open all Files in the directory

FWIW, I haven't found a way of creating a filename with an embedded wildcard char yet.

This may be possible under *nix, but I wonder what would stop the shell from trying to expand it everytime someone tried to use it? Showing my ignorance of *nix stuff again.

  • Comment on Re: Re: Re: Using * character to open all Files in the directory

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Using * character to open all Files in the directory
by belg4mit (Prior) on Jul 06, 2002 at 01:34 UTC
    Yes Windows forbids the use of numerous characters including several non while cards such as : and '. In UN*X you escape the wild character to protect it, same idea as in Perl.

    --
    perl -pew "s/\b;([mnst])/'$1/g"

[reply]

      Actually, I already know what chars windows does/doesn't allow in filenames. Your assumption is slightly wrong though, vis. 

      C:\test>echo .>'

C:\test>dir
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 8C87-E163

 Directory of C:\test

02/08/20  02:55a        <DIR>          .
02/08/20  02:55a        <DIR>          ..
02/08/20  02:55a                     3 '         <<<<<!
02/08/13  03:12p                   210 178232.pl

      [download]

      In an earlier thread the following: 

      ...
@ARGV = map glob, @ARGV;
...

      [download]

      was advised against because "someone might pass in an escaped (eg.what\*ever) filename containing glob chars", and that might cause the above snippet to "break" on *nix environments. I thought then and I am asking now:

      1) Why would anyone wish to embed "*" in a filename? Other than shear perversity.

      2) How would this break?

      Surely, globbing filespec of "what\*ever" is going to match the file named "what*ever"? Granted it might also match "whatifever" etc. but (see Q.1).

      I guess I accept that OS's in general (*nix included) have to reserve some chars in filenames and other system entities (try creating a file "feet/sec" on *nix?).

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
        Right "'" is allowed, D'oh. TANJ. But there are still others. Who are we to say what the user should do? :-P But no, seriously "?" would probably be used quite often, what with the apparent trend of end users to put the file's contents in its name. "*" in filenames might be used to either draw attention to the file, or to make them harder to delete. If you type rmv -rf what\*ver you don't exactly expect whatever to go bye-bye...

        --
        perl -pew "s/\b;([mnst])/'$1/g"

[reply]

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